Kilimanjaro PACKING GUIDE | What we packed, TIPS & ADVICE!

lots of friends and welcome to our fourth video of our Kilimanjaro series the packing guide now if you haven't seen the previous three which is our two vlogs from the mountain as well as our info guide links are down below in the description go give those a watch and at the end of this if you still have questions please let us know in the comments because we are still doing a Q&A and that'll be our fifth and final Kilimanjaro video also if you haven't already don't forget to subscribe to my youtube channel for more travel advice and adventures and hit that Bell for notifications so you'll know when all our next videos come up but now let's get started and we'll go through all the things that we pack for a Kilimanjaro track so there are two bags that you were gonna bring up Kilimanjaro your day bag which is what you're gonna carry on your back while you're hiking and your main bag so your larger luggage bag which is going to be either a duffel bag or a another type of backpack either way it needs to be a soft bag because the porters are gonna carry your main bag up the mountain another thing is there is a limit to the amount of weight that you can have in your main bags that is the rules for Kilimanjaro that was set by the National Park and it's to better ensure that one the porters aren't carrying ridiculous amounts of weight for each bag and to so that you have to hire more porters if you do decide to bring a whole bunch of extra stuff with you know another thing is you should make sure that any bag that you bring before your main bag is waterproof or you have a sort of bag like a dry bag that you could put your me back in now the porters do kind of put them in these like tarp bags but you can't guarantee that it's going to be a hundred percent waterproof in those bags the recommended size for a duffel bag is 80 litres or up now I had a 90 liter bag this is a North Face duffel bag and it was pretty good I got all my stuff in there as well as our rented sleeping bags so that is another thing to keep in mind is that whatever bag you pack if you're renting a sleeping bag or if you're bringing one with you you're gonna need to fit it in your duffel bag this is the one that Mathieu Soviets was smaller it was only a 70 liter bag and the sleeping bag literally took up half of this duffle bag so these are actually my sister's bags she has to death hoop eggs that we ended up borrowing for the trip there were some things that we needed to purchase because we didn't have that specific item and a few things we ended up renting in Moshe because Moshe you can rent pretty much anything for your Kilimanjaro Trek because quite often luggage gets lost and people have a very strict timeline to head up the mountain so they have to like a worst case scenario you have to rent an entire bags worth of which is possible in motion now things that we rented specifically were sleeping bags and our poles because there are two really big items that we didn't want to pack with us especially because we were doing safaris beforehand the quality of the semi bags that we rented were amazing they were so warm just a bit bulky now when it comes to day bags both Matt and I had the same day bag just in different colors but this is the Lowepro photo sport be p300 it's the larger size and it's the same bag that I actually took up all my Patagonia hiking Trek it's a pretty decent bag not the best but it is mainly a camera hiking bag and for that reason that's why we brought it because it has these like quick access counter pockets so it's really nice and secure so if you're if you're gonna be taking your camera out a lot this I found really handy because it kept our gear really really secure this bag in general is kind of on the smaller side most operators recommend at least a thirty liter bag and while this one does work for us it is a smaller size but a me day bag should typically work for you the only thing you do need in it is a hydration bladder pocket this is very very important because you need to be carrying three litres of water with you when you're hiking every single day so you would have a two liter bladder hydration bladder that would go in your pocket and then you would have a one liter bottle in the leg stretchy side access it says three liters of water in your day bag another thing to note is you do want it to be a waterproof day bag as well so either the bag itself is waterproof or in the case of our like this bag specifically we have dislike pullout waterproof cover that we could like cover the bag that was very awkward but you get the point now this I would say this isn't necessary but I rather enjoy these for longer hiking trips is hip belts so add a bag with hip belts obviously before you go you should test out any day bag that you're gonna be using because you're gonna be wearing it for hours and hours and hours so make sure it's quite comfortable because there's gonna be a lot of weight in it once you add three liters of water plus all your other things that you need for the day so there is one last bag that we did bring with us not up the mountain but we've brought with us for our tried to kill me jar Oh and that was it collapsible duffel bag so before you go up the mountain you start at your starting hotel you have a meeting with your group and that is where you will actually have a chance to leave all the things that you don't want to take up the mountain this is very very important especially if you're going on safari before after which is what we did so we brought a collapsible little duffel bag and we put all of our like souvenirs all of our things that we had in our safari trek all of the little extra bits and bobs that we didn't need up the mountain including all our valuables so we didn't bring so our passports are important documents all of our cash our money our cards our laptops if it wasn't valuable we left it in this duffel bag and if it was valuable it was locked up in the safe at the hotel what you take up the mountain you should only be the things you absolutely need for your trek up the mountain and every major hotel that's a starting point for Kilimanjaro will offer this service for you to leave your bag there or your tour provider might offer service for you to leave a bag there we actually brought several different locks on our trip we locked up our bag that we left at the hotel just any kind of like TSA lock we have a whole bunch of these and we brought two other locks for our double bags on the mountain so that's the bag that we would give to our porters not that there was really that much of value like it's valuable to us because we need it for going up the mountain but it just made us feel a little safer was it necessary God probably would have been fine but if you're like super paranoid about your stuff and just bring some locks lock your bag be good we made it about twenty minutes into our hike it started pouring rain dumping rain so now we have all of our rain gear on now when packing your clothing for Kilimanjaro the thing you need to remember is that you go through a whole variety of temperatures on this hike you start off in the rain forest where it can be like 30 degrees and humid so you're gonna be hot and sweaty with lots of Sun and then you get to the summit and it's like negative 15 degrees with wind chill and it's arctic temperatures freezing cold so you kind of need to pack everything now the key is layers layers layers because even when you are hiking on the mountain the temperature is constantly changing the Sun can come up and it can be hot and then the wind could come up and it can be cold so you end up packing a lot of things in your day bag and you kind of just do a lot of various changes throughout your day depending on what the weather decides to do so there are two pairs of shoes that we brought with us on our killer JA track our hiking boots which as you can see are currently non-existent because one of the things that you are able to do and we recommend and what we did at the end of our Trek was to donate some of our gear to the porters and that was our hiking shoes we gave them after our truck was over because some of these porters are hiking up this mountain in Converse in Crocs and shoes with holes on them or with no heels but any hiking boots that you bring on your trek obviously tried to get waterproof if you can ours weren't it was okay we just had wet feet for like the times a train a shoe with a good tread on it would also be very important because it can be kind of loose gravelly and at the top there is snow now we ended up purchasing and bringing these strap on spikes because we were worried about the snow at sumit but we never ended up actually using them because it was pretty compact now the second pair of shoes that we brought where our camp shoes now these are just any old sneaker that you can wear around camp because as soon as you get to camp you're going to want to take off your hiking boots for the trek I ended up bringing two t-shirts so these merino wool t-shirts so they kind of acted like a mini base layer as well as just like a t-shirt layer and I brought two pairs of hiking pants a lighter pant and then a slightly thicker pant my other pair I'd ended up donating to the porters as well so I only have one pair here but I did have two pairs of hiking pants with me now I didn't bring any shorts and honestly didn't need them you're really it's really only gonna be warm for the first day and like the last day and then after that it's gonna be on the slightly cooler side so I was very comfortable and just having t-shirts as my shortest layer when it comes to clothing you want to stick to things that are gonna dry quick and are gonna breathe and are not gonna be that stinking good you're gonna be wearing the same things multiply zero and sweating in them so I brought three pairs of base layers one bottoms and two tops a slightly lighter one and a warmer top now the lighter one is the one I would wear hiking underneath my t-shirt and the warmer one is the one I would change into once I got to camp and I wanted something just clean and no sweaty should wear when it comes to merino wool the two brands that I kind of have a mixture of is icebreaker and smart wall both of them are really nice very pricey though so these are like investment pieces that I've been building up over the years and various hiking trips but they are very worth it if you can invest in some good base layers that you can use for many many years to come for mid layers so these were things that I had with me in my bag that I would kind of alternate between on hiking was my very very tried tested and true vests this is a icebreaker merino wool vest and oh my gosh it is my favorite thing ever it's lightweight it's breathable it's warm and it has a bit of a windbreaker and so it keeps you I don't know it's just amazing just the most amazing best ever a puffy jacket is also another really important essential item for your hike because it can get really cold really quick and puffy jackets you can just like they pack down really really nicely so that works out well but a good warm puffy jacket next up is my camp where slash sleeping where obviously as you're hiking you're gonna be warmer even when it's cooler but when you're at camp you're just sitting there not really doing much so I would put on a couple more layers and I would put on clean layers that I wasn't hiking in so I have a pair of very nice fleecy pants here so this is what I would sleep in as well as I'd wear that around camp on the colder nights I'd even layer my thermal underneath my fleecy and that's what I would sleep in but these worst sound is so nice to lounge around campus then I had a fleece jacket so another layer that I would wear I'd wear my thermals underneath put a nice fleece jacket and then maybe put my puffy on top and that would be a really nice warm cozy camp outfit to wear so even though we were hiking in the dry season it rained multiple times when we were on the hike you really want to make sure that all the rain gear that you get is good quality waterproof rain gear because when it rains it really rains and it's really hard for you to dry off once you get wet on the mountain item number one is a rain jacket gore-tex very waterproof with a hood rain pants very important this was something that I didn't necessarily think we would need as much but use quite a bit you use it if it rains you also will use it on some at night at 8:00 windbreaker and another layer gaiters is another one um gaiters you could probably get by without gaiters I really enjoyed Raiders but what I have been fine without them yes if I had waterproof rain boots and waterproof rain pants also depending on what season you're hiking in there might be lots of mud so they would be really really handy when it comes to that and just like general dirt and pebbles I'd recommend bringing Gators but it's not like a hundred percent necessary you don't have them but you don't want to go buy them now one rain gear piece that I wish that we brought that I was very jealous of the people who did was a poncho now you come people from our group rented Poncho's in Moshe and oh my gosh they would have been amazing for us because with a poncho you can have a very waterproof material but because it's open on the bottom you still have that airflow coming in as well as even though we had the pack cover for our day bags water still got in where the like straps were and down the back so everything was still super soaking wet when we got to camp where as a poncho you could just take your poncho off and then even your rain jacket would be like dry ish underneath so I brought two different hats with me I had a waterproof bucket hat this was for kind of like the first half of the trek it was really nice for when it was raining because it's part of why proof also it protected like all of my ears and face from the Sun super important because it gets quite sunny up a mountain and then a toque or beanie now this is where I wore every single night to bed around camp on some at night a good warm to slash beanie two pairs of gloves one was a lighter pair that I could wear hiking and around camp these are like our skiing snowboarding mittens they are ridiculously warm I love these mittens I have crazy cold hands these are the black diamond mercury mitts and oh my goodness they are amazing you want a really really good pair of warm mittens not gloves for some at night because you are hiking especially with poles very slowly in negative temperatures your hands will get so cold no I brought two different buffs one is just a plain merino wool buff I use this pretty much every other day I think when I was hiking I would have it like around my neck or I'd put it up on my head if it was too like if it was windy it was really nice to get the wind out of your ears as well as I brought a balaclava for summit tonight now this is a full hood balaclava as you can see it goes like that and it would go underneath my toque and then this part covers my mouth this is so important for some at night because it's so cold and as you can see my little hack job this was this happened with a pocket knife while we were hiking up the mountain I had a lot of issues breathing so because the air is super thin I couldn't have anything in front of my mouth this is something I didn't think of and realize would be an issue until we were hiking mountain so I needed to cut open these holes I needed the least amount of resistance I possibly could get for the air coming into my mouth like even times I had to pull up my balaclava down because I just needed to get air in I really recommend bringing a balaclava I even had both of these layered so I had my buff underneath my bellick lava and that was a pretty good system with my toque and that worked really well and that kept me warm and still allowed the air flow in from glasses so we ended up buying a new pair of sunglasses because we wanted something that really wrapped around our face because there's just a really really strong Sun will here at 5,800 meters in me in this in the air in the up high a pair of sunglasses that wrap around and have the UV protection very important socks and underwear so mat may have both brought four pairs of socks which for me four pairs was a good amount but format we got what after the first day so his socks were actually wet for a couple days so he wish he actually brought more socks are fairly light so it's a good thing to kind of invest in more socks than less socks no types of socks that I brought are a mixture of the wool hiking socks starting from thinner pairs all the way to mega super thick the majority of your Hagee socks can be anything but for some at night I would recommend investing in one pair of really good warm socks these are the smart wool mountaineering socks I believe so I didn't have a layer under this sort this was my only sock that I wore for some at night but it was clean it was dry and it was ridiculously warm and I'm very happy that I invested in a good pair of socks for that so I brought three different bras two of them were typical sports bras that I would alternate on hiking days and then I had a softer kind of like lounge around Camp bra that I could change into after hiking for the day as well as this is what I wore off on some at night because I found that I was having issues breathing and the sports bras were feeling way too constricting on my chest and on my lungs so I wanted I almost was gonna go braless up the mountain but I had a very light layer and that I'm so happy that I had that bra just going up the mountain and that's something I didn't really think of so don't just pack sports bras that's what I'm getting in so on the track I was alternating between all the various clothes but on some at night I'm gonna break it down while we warm I wore one pair my super summit socks I had my thermal leggings then I had my fleece leggings my hiking pants and then my rain pants all my bottoms so four layers on my bottoms on my top I had my warmest long-sleeve thermal a t-shirt thermal my handy-dandy vest my fleece my puffy jacket and my rain jacket so that's six layers on my top oh and a bra of course my buff my Bella klava mi-2 my mitts and my gaiters so pretty much all the clothes that you see here you're gonna wear for seven nights just to kind of give you an idea of what to expect and that is sufficient enough to keep you warm as well as do yourself a favor and get yourself some packing cubes it helps keep everything organized and you can separate like dirty and clean stuff although realistically everything's gonna get dirty and some extra bags to put your shoes in so your shoes don't get all like the rest of your duffel bag dirty when you're walking around camp you hydrated it's like a look actually really like the bladder yeah never had a bladder before and this is more or less everything else that we packed so as mentioned before we brought a two liter hydration pack and a one liter Nalgene water bottle so three liters of water carry with us at all times now how you actually get the water is that the porters get fresh water from the streams and they filter it every single day so you're constantly gonna give you given three liters full of water every single day to drink and the more you drink the better but minimum you should be drinking all that every day now both of these have their own purpose and are good for various reasons the count pack is great for hands-free hiking and drinking but the line actually freezes up on some at night so you can't use it when you're summoning the mountain and that's where the Nalgene comes in handy because that stays in your bag and doesn't freeze so you can still be hydrated while summoning a good headlamp now this is handy for around camp when you are going to the washroom when you want a light in your tent as well as you will be hiking with your headlamp all nights on Summit nights so you're gonna want to bring extra batteries at least two different sets because you'll be using this quite a bit for light and I masks and earplugs earplugs are great when you were trying to sleep because camp is very loud and an eye mask is great for the night the day I should say before 7:00 at night because you're trying to sleep at like 4:00 p.m. 1:00 p.m. and it's light out so the help you fall asleep a hot water bottle so if you get cold at night this was such a great pact so myself and my other girls that we did our trek with both had hot water bottles that the camp cook would fill up for us at night and we would have this in our sleeping bags when we fell asleep and oh my goodness it was amazing if you get really cool tonight or if you're worried about getting colds at night pack a hot water bottle and then they'll fill it up with hot water for you max so it's always a really good idea to pack a bunch of snacks because one of the things I can happen to on the mountain is you can lose your appetite so you want to have some foods that you really really love to eat you enjoy eating this is especially true on Summit night and I mean just really from the hike so have a cup of granola bars we also brought Oreos which are our summit Oreos which we're really enjoyable to eat when hiking up the mountain and you can kind of just snack on them various parts throughout the trip to pack some snacks I feel like I don't need elaborate too much of that we talked way too many way too many women the only day that we used hand warmers was some at night and we're very happy that we had them but you had to put the thing with the hand warm is is you got to put them in before you start the trek up the summit because once you're kind of on the mountain they're not gonna work as as well if you're like putting them in after the fact so these are insole foot warmers and this is what I put in my hiking shoe as well as my super crazy warm socks and that is what I wore for seven night and that was perfect for me that kept my feet very very warm I highly highly recommend bringing foot like insole foot warmers that's like that cover your entire foot as well as we put a couple extra hand warmers in our pockets so we could put them in I wish I put some hand warmers in my glove that would have been like a really good idea to put some in there but we were already hiking before I realized that I wanted to bring any warmer my gloves we also put one in the pocket beside our bladders but that didn't really do much because the lime freezes anyway and wants the line freeze as well it can't really use it and then we also put one in our pocket where we kept our camera batteries and that helped not to have our batteries die for the summit trek as well toiletries so this was all toiletries that I brought up on the mountain sunscreen this is very very important because the higher up you go with the thinner the areas and the more dangerous the UV rays are so you can get burnt very easily so we got body sunscreen and then face sunscreen and we pretty much had this in our day packs the entire time and we were reapplying when we were up on the mountain toothpaste and toothbrush so I brought a face wash as well as face wipes and I ended up using the face wipes a much more than I use this wash I kind of regretted bringing this don't bring face wash just bring face wipes dry shampoo is another thing that I brought and I didn't really I used once and I I could have gone without it so that's really up to you realistically your hats yeah your hair is gonna be in a hat and it's gonna be gross eyedrops lip balm with SPF 30 in it this was super important we used a lot of lip balm moisturizer now I use an oil based moisturizer but having I would most erisa the evening because they can't really drive so my two make up items that I brought with me wear waterproof mascara so I'd have a little mascara on and a little bit of a lightweight foundation slash concealer so I put that on my face for now a couple other hygiene items that we brought were wilderness wipes I mentioned this before in various packing videos so the tour provider that we went with every night when we come to camp they would have a fresh bucket of water for washing and they had soap for us so we can wash her hands with soap and it was nice and warm and we could take a bucket of water and like wash ourselves but I always found it like really cold to like wash outside that would wash his like feet off and I'd wash my feet off as well in the bucket of water but for the rest of our body wilderness wipes these you just open these up yeah they're just like any other type of wipe you do your entire body and that's how we would bathe ourselves every day after hiking and then we also brought a small microfiber towel that we use as a washcloth room there is other things that we needed it for like our feet or packs or just gear the toilet situation so if we're going to the washroom we brought our own toilet paper and now some tour providers might give you 12 paper we just went to local convenience store and bought a couple rolls for like 50 cents but we would pack a roll with us and use it to go to the washroom and then we would put the toilet paper the used toilet paper in a little ziploc bag that we would empty out at the end of every hike back at camp one thing to note is you're not actually allowed to bring single-use plastic bags into Tanzania but if you're using it as like a toiletry bag then you can bring it in so you can see this is the TSA bag and I actually had my toiletries in here and then when we went up the mountain we took it as our toilet bag now this was primarily when we were hiking on the mountain as when we were at camp we had a dedicated toilet and we had a wash station with soap and running water but this is what we used and then after we went to the toilet we would use hand sanitizer to clean our hands up now for my hair I did it literally just in one hairstyle which was pigtails so I had a couple hair elastics and I also brought a comb between the two of us we had a very stocked up first aid kit full of a whole lot of things that we would need for this trip now I did a video a while back about what I packed my first aid kit so if you want to see what's in here links down below you can go check it out so I won't go through that but it was it was everything I needed was gonna be in there so I'm not gonna go through all of the various pills that we were taking since I covered that in the previous video but in our day pack we would carry with us all of our essential medications so we were on Diamox that's the altitude sickness pill I'd be with her without being with us in our day pack we would have our advils with us we also have like my iron might be 12 we would have our we didn't have our malaria with us because we would take that at dinnertime another thing that was recommended to us but we never actually ended up using but other people swore by were anti nausea tablets so we ended up picking these up just at a little pharmacy in Moshi but for some people if you're really suffering from the elta sickness like we mentioned before you can lose your appetite or you can feel really nauseous anti-nausea pills would be a good thing to pack as well another kind of like extra thing that we did was electrolyte slash oral rehydration like powders so we would mix these in our Nalgene bottles don't know if that helped us but you know we successfully summited so not a bad thing to have with you even in your general first-aid kit you should have some of those as they're hiking the mountain there's no power so any of the electronics that you bring with you you're gonna want to be fully charged and most importantly you're gonna want a power source so a power bank and you want to be able to have the cords that can charge all your electronics from that power bank so Matt Knight each took a twenty thousand milliamp per battery bank which was way more than we needed because we were filming on two cameras every day we had I was doing stories on my phone but being very conservative on that as well as I was using my Apple watch to kind of track some of the things that we were doing you could probably get by with like a 10,000 milli ampere battery pack but I do highly recommend investing in one not just for this trip it's just a good idea to happen in general we ended up donating both of our battery banks to the port earth to our guides actually to use on Kilimanjaro for the rest of their season so we bought new ones for ourselves and we're really really great um so I didn't really use my phone on the hike aside from using it for stories other people actually got cell signal and they were using it throughout the whole hike taking photos what not again invest in a good power bank and you'll be able to use your phone all that you want an e-reader is something that both Matt and I brought I didn't use my e-reader nearly as much as I thought I would on the mountain because there's not as much downtime as you would suspect you're hiking for most of the day and then the little bits in between your other like tidying up your gear changing trying to wipe yourself down or you're going to the like dining tent and you're sitting and eating and chatting with your fellow hikers so I didn't lose my t Raider that much Matt use his a bit more but if you're on a longer hike you can use it so I used my Apple watch for the hike I was tracking it a lot of other people in our group had various smart watches and they were talking their hike as well but it's not the best method it there's it's not you're not gonna get a perfect reading there are multiple times where my watch just got paused or it was stopped on some at night it just completely died from the temperatures or just the duration of time I was wearing it I don't really know but it was nice to kind of see how long I was hiking for and like I said before I had sufficient battery power so I could charge it every night and not worry about it cameras obviously Matt and I took a camera each of Mountain one lens each lots of batteries luckily our camera you can charge via a battery pack and I highly recommend bringing a camera that you can't charge via a battery pack but if you don't then just buy a couple extra batteries because it's Kilimanjaro you're going to want to capture that and your battery is most likely gonna die at Summit so it's good idea to have a fresh one that you hold like keep nice and warm with you on that summit Trek a universal adapter is obviously important to charge up your electronics before and after your hike you're not gonna take this up on the mountain because there's no plugs there but in Tanzania I believe they use a UK plug so it's just a good idea to have a travel adapter just leave it at the hotel as well as you're gonna want all the cords that you need to charge all of your electronics and make sure that they all plug into your battery pack so here we have them our bags are all packed up so everything you saw is now packed up - in either our day bag or our main bag obviously we're missing a few items such as extra panel bars some extra batteries extra hand warmers and we're not wearing our clothes that we've now packed up so this would technically there'd be less clothes in it because I'd be wearing some of this but I just wanted to give you a quick idea of how much all the stuff that you saw it would weigh so let's do that let's weigh our luggage as well as we were missing in the sleeping bag which would go in a roomy bag which was two point five kilos so we'd have to add two point five kilos to that so this bag is currently 7.25 kilos so add the 2.5 and you're at UM just under 10 kilos so very well under the 15 kilo limit and then we've got four point five kilos on our de bag but of course that's with no water in there and you might have some other snacks that you would have gotten from camp so it may be a little bit heavier than that but not too bad so this was a really long video but I hope you guys enjoyed it and I gave you a really good idea what to pack for a Kilimanjaro Trek if you have any more questions please let us know down below in the comments and we'll try to answer as many as we can in our Q&A video just coming up after this thanks for watching give this a thumbs up hit that subscribe button and I'll see you guys again soon

Channel: Hey Nadine

Views: 37,286

Rating: 4.9584122 out of 5

Keywords: Female travel, Travel advice, travel tips, Trekking, Hiking, Mountaineering, Kilimanjaro, Kili, Machame, Moshi, Tanzania, Africa, Kandoo, Kandoo Adventures, Camping, Diamox, High altitude, Dry season, Couple, Porters, training, planning, training for kilimanjaro, fitness, route, northern circuit, packing, what to pack, packing guide, gear, equipment, bags, backpack, trekking poles, camping gear, trek tips

Id: CTaVvEfD-PQ

Length: 35min 44sec (2144 seconds)

Published: Wed Apr 22 2020